I want so much to be with you. I know it will take a while. We never had a day where we were together for a long time, but to have a day where I’m in your home, that has a nice ring to it. So call me when you have a moment, because I love you, you’re my sweet son.

—Father’s voice message

I want soap’s
            mucho topaz.
Beauty withdraws.
                        Youth’s innermost
knowledge, inked,
            will be taken away.
While wet, even
                        Hades & Arcadia
daydreamed of wherever
            wetnesses weren’t
gathered. Forever’s a long-
            haul timelessness—
but no haven. A daydream
            where images aren’t infinite,
our Homeric
                        thataway,
has appeal:
            nice-looking ringleted
tourists’ ice creams.
            Soap bubbles. Calla lily
meadows. Whenever
            eurekas havoc. All momentary
because involving
            love. Youth,
you’re myrrh-sweetened,
            sun-melty.

 

 

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Alex Chertok has published poems in Ploughshares, Kenyon Review Online, Southern Review, Beloit Poetry, and Copper Nickel. He currently teaches through the Cornell Prison Education Program.

 

 

 

Photo by Michal Pokorný on Unsplash